Help me vets?

[Kyonne]

Hey, I'm coming back to the game after playing only a couple months on launch. So I decided to start again and made a jedi shadow!

 

Awesome, I thought, now I can tank, stealth, taunt, guard and pew pew!

 

.....

 

I'm level 25 now and I haven't done anything other than spam double strike for the past... 25 levels...

I'm getting extremely bored.

 

Yes, I use breach when I need to AoE, and force speed to close gaps, but mostly it's double strike spam, because it deals the same damage of my project, with half of the cost, so even a garanteed critical on project is not worth using it unless I have the unleash thing on...

 

In pvp I feel just... dumb? I mean, all I do is to tunnel vision someone and spam 1... with an ocasional interrupt/stun and taunt/guard when they are focusing a healer. (which usually makes the healer survive and I die because he didn't notice that -I- was taking the damage for him.)

 

Some people will come here and say: LOL L2P, yes, that's why I am here, I want advices. Does the class get better as we progress further in the tank tree with the 30% energy regen, 30% discount on project, 50% on maul, slow time, etc? because I feel completely gimped compared to any other class I face one on one, because they have so many buttons to press and I dont...

[Avicii]

It kinda sucks at low levels after the 2.0 talent changes. Use guard staying within range of it and rotate it on to the person being pressured. It tough without a healer help keep your health up. Since you should have Partical Acceleration maybe put a point into Upheaval for some added burst when it procs so your projects have a chance at additional dmg.

 

Or you could spec into balance to FiB but run the tank charge, this gives you a 30 meter range AoE that hits 5 people and will help add done burst but you should also take the 2 talent points to reduce the cost by 20. Also don't forget Shafow Strike, it's a force eater but a crit in one will put a hurt on people in the lower levels brackets.

 

I would recommend getting the unlock for talent respecing and test different things out to see what works while running the tank charge. Just have to stick it out till you till you get the talents and skills later in that pull it all together.

[DaftVaduhhh]

At that level you're better off being a DPS spec, but whether you want to run in tank stance is up to you.

 

Here's a simple breakdown at 25:

 

Kinetic

PROS: Decent mitigation, won't get immobilised easily, auto-crit project

CONS: Project still expensive, force regen won't quite keep up (as you've noted)

 

Infil:

PROS: Cheap project, good burst (Infil Tactics is *just* available)

CONS: Project won't be cheap in Combat Technique

 

Balance:

PROS: Force in Balance, Surge bonus for DS, significantly higher melee crit, free instant Mind Crush

CONS: Instant Mind Crush won't work in Combat Technique

 

My advice: Be a Balance DPS for a bit assuming you have the gear, otherwise borrow heavily from it until you're level 32, at which point you can respec, get Force Pull and a cost discount to Project and come into your own as tank (Spinning Strike will also help immensely for single target pressuring).

[Kyonne]

Thanks for the replies guys. And I feel much better now playing my shadow as balance, she's level 31! Next level (soon!) I'll respec to kinetic combat!

 

 

Now... I have another question about Kinetic combat.

The tier 2 talents, I might be missing something because I look at them and they all look like garbage to me, except elusiveness.

 

3% extra endurance, I'm not sure but 3 points to get 3% endurance doesn't sound right, I imagine I'll have around 1.5k -2k endurance late game? so 3% of 2000 is 60, that's 600 extra hp on a 25k hp pool, how is that worth 3 points?

 

Rapid recovery and expertise sound extremely bad, 15% extra chance to proc something that deals mediocre damage and neglectable heal, that also can't proc more than once every 4.5 seconds. The other increases the damage by 18% of said low damage.

 

=/ I don't know what to pick here... are they all really bad or am I missing something important?

[nagatamen]

I understand why you'd think they're worthless, so I'm gonna try and explain why you would or wouldn't take them.

 

Expertise - I generally don't take this one, there are just much better talents to throw your points in. This will only give you a few extra dps, which if your group truly needs you to take this then someone else in the raid isn't doing their job right.

 

Rapid Recovery - Bioware has placed a pretty sizable chunk of our mitigation into self healing (something most theorycrafters think needs to be reduced) but as a result of it being so "integral" to our class you want the procs to happen every 4.5 seconds instead of every 5, or 6 or whenever. With that 15% our proc chance is 65% I believe (don't have my toon available to confirm).

 

Mental Fortitude - 3% Endurance, it's not much but there aren't many, if any, talents that are significantly better. On a minor note it does help your Harnessed Shadows self healing a little. Is it mandatory? Probably not, but I can't figure any better place to put the points.

 

Of course if I can be shown otherwise I'm all ears. For reference this is what I generally use for my build (doing it from memory so I may have made mistakes)

[DaftVaduhhh]

The endurance talent works out to be up to 800 HP now I think, so yeah it's worthless. I typically go for the increased proc chance on Combat Technique to all but guarantee it goes off on the ICD refresh, then the obligatory 2 points into the follow up talent from Double Bladed Sabre Defence which helps your Resilience refresh faster.

 

Talent tree would look thusly: http://www.torhead.com/skill-calc#601Rcroddfz.3

 

Next point to round out the DS & WB % damage increase, then into the absorb talents before moving up the three and taking everything in the top 3 tiers if you want to go full tank.

Edited August 10, 2013 by DaftVaduhhh

[Kitru]

Next point to round out the DS & WB % damage increase, then into the absorb talents before moving up the three and taking everything in the top 3 tiers if you want to go full tank.

 

I wouldn't bother with Martial Prowess. Getting to use Spinning Kick outside of stealth isn't really all that useful outside of PvP.

 

Basically, everything except for Mental Fortitude, Expertise, and Martial Prowess is *required*. Mental Fortitude and Expertise are part of the +3 personal choice attached to the 36/3/4+3 spec. You can place the +3 wherever you feel like: Expertise and Force Synergy add a bit more damage/threat (right around 20-30 DPS), Mental Fortitude gives you an extra ~1000 hp (at 36000 hp, before talent, 3% Endurance is 1005 hp), and Celerity provides you with some utility benefits (the reduction on Mind Snap is the big part of that because a lot of the tank interrupt mechanics are on a 10 second CD that screws over Shadows since they're design with VG/Guards in mind, since Jesse Sky has no idea what Shadows have).

[DaftVaduhhh]

The OP mentions PvP.